Is the Ferrari 456 GT Venice still the perfect London grocery getter?

Brunei's royal rides are aging better than most supercars from a decade ago

A total of seven 456 GT Venice station wagons were reportedly made, but not all have been seen in recent years.

Over the years, the internet hive mind has figured out which cars the Brunei royal family likes to show off in European capitals and which ones they're not terribly fond of (or which may be suffering from some unsolvable mechanical issue). One car that looks like a keeper is the Ferrari 456 GT Venice station wagon ordered in the 1990s by Prince Jefri Bolkiah. This wagon has been making regular appearances not only on Reddit but in front of central London boutiques with names that seem to have inspired the shops in Diagon Alley.

The prince's fondness for bespoke station wagons and sedans is well-known if not well-documented, and a five-door 5.5-liter V12 Ferrari grocery getter is precisely what we would demand if we ruled an oil-rich island. The fact it's right-hand drive does not suggest the car was ordered specifically to be kept at the owner's U.K. residence -- Brunei itself is a right-hand-drive country.

The 456 GT Venice was designed by Pininfarina and reportedly cost $1.5 million each back in the mid-1990s, which seems like a bargain today given the labor involved. But, just like at Costco, you've got to buy in bulk to get these kinds of prices: A total of seven wagons were made, six of which reportedly wound up in the prince's collection. The one car that is unaccounted for could have been a development car that tested various engineering solutions.

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The 2018 Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo will be on sale later this year in the U.S.

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Porsche

The 2018 Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo will be on sale later this year in the U.S.

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Porsche

The 2018 Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo will be on sale later this year in the U.S.

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Porsche

The 2018 Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo will be on sale later this year in the U.S.

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Porsche

The 2018 Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo will be on sale later this year in the U.S.

Unlike some other automotive fantasies in the prince's collection, the Venice is one of the more easily registered models -- not all were built to crash standards of the day, one reason we haven't seen the Bentley Dominator SUVs on U.K. soil. Still, we wonder why Ferrari didn't build more and officially offer the models to other customers. At the very least, a wagon with a roof rack is the perfect ride for glitzy European ski resorts.

The takeaway? If you find yourself in London, skip Madame Tussaud's wax museum and go straight to the Mayfair, Belgravia and Knightsbridge neighborhoods for some car spotting.